Maybe writing about it will help
by May La Nee
Summary: TW/CW mental illness, suicide and estranged child. Alternative title: 'Thoughts of an Awful Parent.' Someone suggested to Draco that he should write to unburden himself somewhat. It didn't help. Stand-alone oneshot from a joint AU RP named The Rainboiis written over multiple fics with Klybneeka


**This oneshot is part of an AU named The Rainboiis which is an RP now written up by Klybneeka and myself. It will be shared through multiple fics, both oneshots and multichapter.  
Listing can be found on my profile.  
**

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**14 08 2006**

My son was born. I have never been prouder.

By then I already practised law, as I was determined to ascertain that defendants are punished for the crimes they have committed, not for acts of which others deem them capable.

The birth of my son strengthened my resolve to work with full integrity.

Now, however, it was not just that I wanted to clear the family name — I wanted to set an example for _him_. I wanted to become someone of whom he could be proud, someone he would consider an example.

By that time I had already learnt from the pitfalls my own parents fell into when raising me, so my wife and I had made some decisions regarding his upbringing.

We wanted him to be knowledgeable of the world around him but also, we wanted him to be kind, generous and caring.

It did not take long for us to realise that something was the matter with him.

Of course it is normal for children to be upset when they are told that they cannot do or have certain things, but his responses seemed disproportionate.

We thought that we had perhaps inadvertently spoilt him.

The first true escalation was when he was ten years old. I do not remember what set him off that time, but he was once again convinced that we hated him. He stormed off in one of his many tantrums.

What made this incident stand out was that he gulped down a bottle of cleaning product in the conviction that it would kill him.

It did no such thing of course, but that it had been his genuine intention made us realise the intensity of his responses.

Finding him the help he needed was next to impossible.

In the magical world, a person is either normal or mad.

There is nothing else.

Of course there is Saint Mungo's, but we couldn't have him be surrounded by broken people. Our son had simply developed in a way that made life very difficult for him, but he had neither been hurt nor fallen ill.

Muggles have been devising systems to categorise people's madness for decades. Depending on the behaviours and thoughts that individuals have, their afflictions can be labelled and oftentimes also treated.

Yet speaking to a Muggle about this seemed wrong - the key to finding out the right categorisation of his madness was that he could talk to them openly and freely, but speaking to such a professional about magic would either expose our world or make them think that he was hallucinating.

At around that time Hogwarts was beginning for him, too, so the options we had to get him the help he needed were rather limited.

We did not rest during his first term and left no stone unturned in the search for people who could be of assistance in finding professional help for a mentally unhealthy wizard, all the while trying to give him as normal a time as possible at school.

The letters we received about his behaviour would have been bad enough without his own conflicting statements on all accounts.

Our precious boy was full of love, yet when there was the faintest sign of displeasure aimed in his general direction, however slight or even imagined, he would take it as a personal attack and hate the offender so dreadfully that he considered them his enemy.

There was a ridiculous amount of fights.

The animosity he experienced would rarely last longer than three days and more often than not it would be resolved by the time we received the owl informing us about it.

When I was young, holidays had been filled with treats, trips, and tutors on different subjects.

For our boy this was not an option.

My wife and I were still new to the concept of mental health, so we were under the illusion that if we would only know what was troubling him, we would be able to cure him.

After three long, difficult years worth of holidays spent travelling the world, meeting mental health professionals who were familiar with magic, we finally found an expert in Britain, of all places.

He was able to give a preliminary diagnosis which did seem most suitable when he explained it to us.

Our child was most likely suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder.

The next date of significance is **14 12 2020**.

My Father died.

My son and him were incredibly close, and that day my son told me he wished that it had been me.

He was trembling, crying, struggling to keep calm, but he made a point to go over to me and tell me "I wish you had died instead".

His tone was flat, which stuck with me particularly because he usually shouted when he was upset.

I know it was his illness and of course that he was just a boy… yet I don't think I have ever been able to forgive him.

Perhaps my attitude towards him was a bit cooler after that.

Perhaps his attitude towards me was, too.

Either way, he seemed to be getting worse.

One particular incident stands out.

It was January and he had been incredibly upset with someone he considered his 'friend' for that week, which had kept him so occupied that he had neglected to turn in an essay for one of his classes.  
This obviously resulted in a terrible mark but rather than write to us and explain the situation, he decided that the best response was to fly a broomstick as high as he could and threaten to plummet to his death if we were to be informed.

When I told him in the past that I wanted him to do well in school, I never meant for him to have top marks.

I know how unattainable those are as I have never managed them for myself, no matter how my parents pushed.

I just wanted him to try his best. _His_ best.

Of course the teachers had no trouble getting him down unharmed.

I wonder now whether that was the first sign of him beginning to reject us.

His therapist had trouble getting him to listen, we got more letters from school and even threats of expulsion, but we didn't know what to do.

He still wrote to my wife warmly but to me he responded as if he were fulfilling an obligation. He hardly told me anything on his own initiative anymore but the few things he did mention were downright negative. He would write about how poorly he was doing, about how he hated his fellow students, the curriculum, himself and also me.

I tried many times to talk to him about these things. About how these slights he was seeing against him might not be real, that maybe he was reading too much into them or misinterpreting things...

I think trying to talk him out of these thoughts might have escalated his dislike of me.

As I was unable to get anything positive out of our ongoing exchange, I tried to shift it to the topic of his future. By then he was in his sixth year.

It wasn't as if I had a particular career in mind for him, I just wanted him to want something. I wanted him to work towards a future of his own making no matter what it might be.  
Not only did I expect that this might grant him focus and distract him from his plans of suicide, about which he was not at all secretive, I hoped discussing his future would give us something that we could collaborate on, something over which we could bond.

He had taken his O.W.L.s without genuine interest in them and his N.E.W.T.s were just a formality to him, judging from what he wrote to my wife. When his time at Hogwarts was coming to an end he had still not given any indication as to what course he wanted to pursue for himself.

This next part is difficult for me to write.

When I was in school myself I had not been likable. I recognise this in hindsight and apparently there is still a lot of spite and malice in me.

My 'toxic attitude', he called it.

I was just the wrong father to a boy like him.

It was the beginning of summer 2024 when he finished his tests and had come home from Hogwarts for the final time.

I had lost my patience.

I wasn't angry or even disappointed… I was scared.

As I understand it, people need to set goals so that they have something to strive towards, something which allows them to prosper… and the only plans he had uttered were those of his own death.

I was scared _for_ him.

I tend to avoid what scares me.

I hoped that, rather than asking once again if he had perhaps an idea of what he wanted to pursue next, it might be a good idea to apply some semblance of pressure.

Many well-meaning people in my environment had told me that being stricter was the solution, as their children of course told them about the 'mad boy' at school.

I hadn't dared try it, since I have first-hand experience of being pushed towards things that are unattainable.  
But he clearly differed greatly from me and my wife...

Maybe we had been too soft?

I figured that since he would be home for a while now, I should at least try.

I was about to leave for work at half past ten in the morning and we passed each other on the landing of the second floor. I told him that I wanted him to find something to commit to for a while, that I wanted him to make some kind of plan for his future, however small.

At this point I had been chasing him about doing something of that nature for well over a year.

Now I told him that I didn't want to see him until he had some kind of plan.

I thought I would return at the end of the day, perhaps see him then or in the morning, as the house is easily big enough to avoid someone if you want to. I assumed I would hear by then that he would do some language course or something. Try out for a Quidditch team. Join a drama club. Get a job at McDonalds for 12 hours a week.

Anything, really.

I had not expected that he would leave.

The next two years I did not hear or read anything from him directly.

His Mother and him corresponded, minimally, but he did not tell her much about where he was or what he was doing. She told him many times that he was welcome to return but he never acknowledged that part of her letters.

He did not answer mine at all.

What should I have done? He was an adult, I couldn't force him to do anything.

**23 03 2026**

He was found by one of the Muggles with whom he shared an apartment.  
He had a bedroom to himself there, a dingy dark place that was smaller than his clothing cabinet at home with us.

He had taken pain killers, cut his wrists, slathered his hands and feet in soap and used plastic wire to hang himself from an exposed beam in the ceiling.

The room was so small that his ankle touched his bed as he hung there, which goes some way in illustrating just how little his life was worth to him.

We found a lot of notes on the desk, written descriptions of his darker thoughts. Apparently he had tried to do this many times before but his magic kept saving him while he was unconscious.

He did not write a letter.

He did not say goodbye.

During these two years I had told him that I'm sorry in every letter I wrote to him.

I told him again on his funeral.

It brought no relief.

I was raised to believe that family is everything. We preserve good social standing _for the family_, we do our best to keep the right influences so it reflects well _on the family_, the family home is to be kept in excellent state _for progeny_… There is nothing but family from beginning to end.

But my only son is dead.

My wife has started a charity to raise awareness for mental health care in the magical world. We have a millennium worth of family fortune to pump into it, not to mention whatever we could gather from selling all the property we own if we chose to do so.

None of it will bring him back.

Nine years have passed since he took his life and the pain does not fade.

My Mother is emigrating, my wife and I are considering divorce.

Everything that I was taught to believe in is gone.

I don't know where to go from here.


End file.
